It’s hard to think about all the games coming out in 2012. I’m up to my neck in Skyrim and Trine 2, I still want to finish off the Riddler challenges in Arkham City, and I have yet to start Skyward Sword, Deus Ex, Ico, or Infamous 2.
With the exception of the top few items on the list, I’ll likely wait for the enthusiast blogs to weigh in before I make any purchases, but there’s some good stuff here, including a couple games in which I hadn’t been interested until I did a little checking around.
1-The Last Guardian
Top on the list is a game that I’ve been looking forward to for years. It’s true that I have yet to play through the copy of Ico sitting next to my PS3, but I plan to. Everything I’ve heard about The Last Guardian has made me want to play it even more. The game has been slated to come out in 2012, but whether that’s February or December is anyone’s guess.
2-Thi4f
Yeah, the name is weird as hell. I imagine they’ll give it a colon and a tag line at some point soon. There’s nothing specific to indicate that the game will be coming out in 2012, but I’m hopeful.
3-Amy
The release date on this game has been pushed more than I was in second-grade. It’s a 2012 release now, and I plan to download it on release day. It’s been a while since I played a proper survival horror game, and Amy looks to be a good one. The latest rumor says that Amy will be released next week, so Amy is likely the first chronological release on this list.
4-Dishonored
Slated to come out in the second quarter of the year, Dishonored is a first-person stealth game. That immediately grabbed my attention. When I saw that the people working on the game are the same folks who did Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Thief: Deadly Shadows, I got even more interested. I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.
5-Quantum Conundrum
Quantum Conundrum is a downloadable game for XBLA and PSN, and it should be out early this year. Like Narbacular Drop and Tag: The Power of Paint before it, Quantum Conundrum sounds like exactly the kind of game that Valve would snatch up for use in Portal 3. But this time, instead of portals or spray-on gel, the gimmick is switching between four dimensions that overlap in space. I can see this creating a lot of interesting scenarios for puzzles similar to the ones in Portal.
6-I Am Alive
Another game that’s been delayed quite a bit, I Am Alive is supposed to come out in Q1 this year. The description and environment makes me think of Enslaved without the sci-fi. Post-apocalypse, everyone’s just trying to survive. Some dude has to get from A to B, across the destroyed cityscape.
7-Borderlands 2
Although I had a lot of complaints, I did really enjoy Borderlands. I doubt they’ll have the same ideas for the sequel as I’d once suggested, but I’m hoping for a wealth of improvements. With any luck, that will include a better interface on the PC. It will likely be released in 2012, but there are no guarantees.
8-Monaco
It’s possible that you’ve never heard of a little indie game called Monaco. If not, let me clue you in, because the game sounds like a multiplayer Team Fortress 2 meets Pac Man. Monaco is a top-down 4-player stealth action game wherein players are executing a heist. Each player’s thief has a different role. Maybe yours can pick locks, demolish walls, foil security cameras, or see through walls with infrared. There are gameplay videos on YouTube, and they look awesome. They’ve been planning to release Monaco for a long time, so with any luck we’ll see it very soon.
9-Far Cry 3
After an agonizing first playthrough, I decided that I loved the first Far Cry. The second was somewhat less to my liking, but still fun. The weird thing is that the first few games seemed to have little in common other than the name. No recurring characters, themes, or plots. The game will have the same sandbox feel as Far Cry 2, but add experience-based leveling. They’re adding stealth gameplay as well, which is something I love. We should see Far Cry 3 sometime in 2012.
10-Mass Effect 3
The Mass Effect series is something that everyone seems to love, and yet I’ve never felt nearly as strong about it. The ending of Mass Effect 2 was indeed very good, but overall I can’t help feeling a certain ambivalence for the series. Rather than grabbing it as soon as it comes out on March 6th, I may wait for the price to drop.
11-Journey
Journey is something of a mystery to me, and yet I’m still intrigued. You’re a little pup tent looking thing, travelling through the wilderness towards a mountain. What do you do on those travels? Not sure. Is it fun? No idea. But you can meet other players randomly, since as I understand it, there’s no way to play offline. You can’t communicate with them other than by wordless shouts, but they’re there. What can you do together? I can’t say. Hopefully more info arises before the springtime release, as I’m strangely intrigued.
12-SpyParty
SpyParty is a reverse Turing test in the same vein as the multiplayer mode of Assassins Creed, in which you need to convince other live players that you’re a computer-controlled character. One player is a sniper in the bushes outside a dinner party, and he’s got a single bullet. The other is a spy attending the dinner party who has to steal a single item. You can see where this is going. I watched people playing SpyParty in early 2011 at PAX East, and I’m intrigued.
13-Starcraft 2: The Heart of the Swarm
As underwhelmed as I was at Starcraft 2, the Zerg are my favorite. So I’ll probably pick up the Zerg expansion. As long as I can burrow a huge swarm of zerglings beneath a group of unsuspecting space marines, I’ll be happy. The look on their faces when you pop up in their midst is priceless. Nobody seems to know when the expansion will come out, but 2012 seems reasonable.
14-Prototype 2
Prototype and Infamous are similar in a lot of ways, but I have to say that I prefer Prototype. Why? It’s probably because I like the gliding better in Prototype than in Infamous, and I prefer running up walls to clowly climbing them. It’s not at all because I like leaping from 10 story buildings to elbow drop a tank and then eat the guys who jump out of it before it explodes. Not at all. April 24th. Prototype 2.
15-Diablo 3
Diablo is the king of isometric action RPGs. I’ve played Torchlight, Heroes of Norrath, Sacred 2, all the Dungeon Sieges, and a bunch of others I can’t remember right now. Mostly I play them multiplayer with my wife. But everyone likes Diablo the best. If I recall correctly, there’s a huge DRM issue here that might dissuade me from buying the game at all, but if they do away with it I’ll likely get a copy eventually.
16-Mechwarrior Online
You know what I love about the Mechwarrior games? I love that they’re relatively slow-paced. I love it when my mech is marching STOMP STOMP STOMP through the mountains and I get a missile lock warning and I know that I’ve got about seven seconds before the LRMs hit. Even more, I love to customize my mech. I love deciding that I can remove two heat sinks in the left arm so that I can move the autocannon ammo there, making room for short range missiles in the torso. I love to spend a half hour figuring out exactly the right way to customize my mech. It’s fun.
If reports are to be believed, the new Mechwarrior game is due out in Q2, and will make light, medium, and assault mechs into an analog of character classes, making each useful in their own ways. You’ll also be able to play with a number of other people, which to me is both a pro and a con. I always loved the single-player campaigns in Mechwarrior, and I have no desire to go online and have my ass kicked by a thirteen-year-old. We’ll see how this one shapes up.
17-Prey 2
Prey 2 seems like it’s going to have close to nothing to do with the first game in the series. It’s the same thing that the Far Cry series did between its first two games: new game, same name. That’s fine with me, because although I finished the original Prey, I thought it kind of stunk. I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground on reviews for the game once it comes out this summer, although I may wait for it to hit the bargain bin.
18-Torchlight 2
I played Torchlight, but I was never able to get into it quite the way everyone else did. Still, the fact that it’s going to be multiplayer makes it a good candidate for me to play with my wife. To that end, I may end up buying it.
19-Bioshock Infinite
Like Mass Effect, Bioshock is a series that everyone seems to love. Well, everyone else loves it. Not me. I played both Bioshock games and was underwhelmed both times. I’ll probably do the same thing with Bioshock Infinite that I did with the other two games. I’ll play it a year or so after it’s released, picking it up for under $20.
20-Alan Wake (PC)
People with XBox 360s played Alan Wake a while ago, but PC gamers like myself have to wait for “early 2012”, when the PC version is supposed to come out. The gameplay videos I’ve seen don’t draw me, but I’ve heard friends rave about how much they loved the game, so I’ll likely try it out.
And that’s what I see coming in 2012. No idea if the Wii U will be out this year, but CES is next week, and we should learn a lot more about it then.
